The Representative Claim 2.0 - Social Media's Implications for Political Representation

The advance of digital media platforms is reshaping the democratic public (Habermas 2022) and poses questions for the modes of political organization in democracies. While communication, deliberation, and participation in the digital sphere are widely researched (Habermas 2022, Isin/Ruppert 2020, Kaun/Uldam 2018, Bennett/Segerberg 2012), the consequences of social media for the nature of political representation – one of the central organizing principles of modern democracies - remain an open question. Existing research focuses mostly on the digitalized relationship between elected representatives and citizens (Barberá et al. 2019, Karlsson/Åström 2016, Coleman 2005). In the constructivist turn of representation studies, Michael Saward theorized non-electoral forms of political representation (Saward 2010). With the participatory revolution through digital media platforms, new areas, strategies, actors, and audiences emerge (Deseriis 2021). The democratization of discursive access through digital media enables new actors and communities to articulate interests and identities that can be addressed through representative claims (Saward 2010) by non-electoral actors on social media platforms. However, these prospects for complimentary forms of political representation amidst the crisis of representative institutions are limited: The (algorithmic) design of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter shapes specific media logics, that privilege and incentivize certain ways of communication over others (Huszár et al. 2022, Hermida/Mellado 2020, KhosravaNik2018, Bossetta 2018, Introna/Nissenbaum 2000). These design choices have consequences for the political opportunity structure for the articulation, acceptance, and quality of representative claims. The key question is the following: How does the “digital architecture” (Bossetta 2018: 471) of social media platforms shape the nature of representative claims in the digital sphere? Looking at the specific design and social media logics of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, I want to discuss their implications for the nature and structure of representative claims and their makers and audiences (Saward 2010). I will also give an outlook on the normative consequences of these changes in political representation and their impact on analogue politics: Do they offer democratizing potential for crisis-ridden political representation, or do they threaten democratic representation by violating its key principles, accountability, and responsiveness?